


Unshed Tears

by Toshi_Nama



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshi_Nama/pseuds/Toshi_Nama
Summary: What do you do, when your one last window to the innocent, passionate girl you were passes beyond reach?  Sometimes, it takes another to remember to try again.





	Unshed Tears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Settiai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/gifts).

She’d told the Inquisitor she would be fine; she would take care of everything. She swallowed against the murmur of power below her as she tried to write the words to Laurent. For the first time, the words didn’t come. 

He’d tried to prepare her. She’d stood by him as he wrote the letters when Nicoline passed, to make sure she understood the needs of court, family, and the other minutiae of death, and yet…

It didn’t help.

Not now, not when her vaunted control kept her from howling her grief, but couldn’t prevent the parchment from growing damp. It was ridiculous. She was a mage; didn’t her detractors claim she had no heart? If only it was true. Vivienne made the mistake of glancing at the flowers the servants had set along the windows - peonies. He’d brought her peonies, courted  _ her,  _ a mage, until they’d both forgotten politics.

“Oh, Bastien.” Her fingers trembled as she touched the paper still dressed only with ‘Dearest Laurent.’ 

“Vivienne?” The quiet, if coarse, voice broke past her grief. She’d been so absorbed in her own grief she hadn’t paid attention to footfalls along the stairs - if, that is, the Inquisitor had bothered to let them sound. With the Inquisitor, it was impossible to say. The former Carta head was just as subtle as Vivienne herself, in her own way. 

She shook her head, not in the mood for a heart-to-heart. “It is nothing.” Nothing. That’s all she had now. Her Circle had been lost thanks to Fiona’s single-minded selfishness, her position at Court soon followed once Celene could be tempted by a mysterious apostate - they could have been friends, had circumstances been different - and now, she’d lost Bastien, too.

“Nugshit.” The crass language didn’t surprise her, though this was one of the few times it was directed at  _ her.  _ “Then again, if you want the lie, I won’t fight it.”

“You won’t?” Vivienne felt her own voice take on razor-sharp edges. “It must be one of the few fights you let slide.” It was patently unfair - she’d take herself to task later.

The Inquisitor just nodded. “Yeah. You’re no ice queen, no matter what some people think. I get it. The first one’s hard.” The dwarf looked into the distance for a moment. “Trying a second time’s the only thing that might be worse, but that doesn’t matter. You don’t have time to wallow, and you don’t deserve to close yourself off.”

“Oh? And what will you do? Console me?” With Inquisitor Letitia Cadash, she rarely hid the razors when they came out. 

It was its own relief, though she wouldn’t admit it publically - or even in private. She shouldn’t. A mage,  _ especially  _ a First Enchanter, should always control her emotions. That was especially true when even  _ she  _ wasn’t sure what all lurked within that particular storm.

“If you want. We know and respect each other, at least most of the time, and you’re a beautiful woman.” A sharp curl came to her mouth. “Advantage doesn’t matter - I’m the Inquisitor, beloved or at least feared by enough people, and you’re a strong woman yourself. Even if I tried using something like this, who’d believe a thug like me? The only ones who might wouldn’t believe you’d do it anyway.”

“How  _ dare  _ you!” It snapped her temper, if not her hard-won control of her magic. Instead of a spell that might not affect the dwarf anyway, it was her hand that lashed out - a hand the much shorter woman caught, then kissed the palm.

This couldn’t - she bit her lip against responding, somewhere beyond shock. Vivienne felt herself suspended for a moment, fury melding with the grief and odd rapport she and the dwarf had developed over their...experiences together. Her eyes held those of one of the few women she  _ could  _ be honest with, then everything twisted and shifted inside. Her icy rage heated deep in her belly - something she’d not felt before.

There was no tenderness, no soft words or delicate caresses it what came next. There was also no love in this lovemaking. Demanding fingers met violent passion, lips and tongues used only to drive things further. For all that, it was remarkably quiet; even in the throes of another sharp climax, neither made a sound greater than the murmurs below, muffling anything further in the other’s shoulder or neck.

Nothing about it reminded her of Bastien and his courtly ways, or the sweet passion that faded to comfortable closeness as the years continued to pass. Nothing about the woman who now shared her body reminded her of the lover she’d just lost. Maybe that’s why she could abandon herself for the moment.

After, the Inquisitor slipped back on her shirt. Vivienne slowly followed, ignoring her damp cheeks much as the Inquisitor did. When the dwarf had finished buttoning up her pants and made to leave, she couldn’t let it stay like that.

“Why, Letitia?”

The Inquisitor turned to look at her, the marks from the previous hour covered by dark blue satin - an outfit Vivienne had helped the tailor develop to suit both her practical streak and the dignity her title deserved. “Because I wish someone had for me,” she responded, her voice quiet and emotionless enough to show the rivers that ran beneath it. “Because you had something I never did. I had months. You had decades. It gets easier, after a while. I don’t know if that’s better or worse, but at least it’s still something.”

Vivienne looked down to fasten her corset again - one of the latches had bent in their haste to disrobe. “Later, that might help.”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t until later, the nobles largely gone, that Vivienne returned to her table. The letters - she almost discarded the warped parchment, but after a hesitation, chose not to.

_ Laurent, _

_ What we have long expected and dreaded has come to pass. Your father, our beloved Bastien, is no more. I don’t have any final words from him other than his begging all of us to go on. Remember him with fidelity and fondness, and live joyously. He would want no less. _

_ Vivienne. _

She glanced down from her railing, toward where the door to Josephine’s office lay - and the staircase to Letitia’s quarters.  _ It gets easier. _

_ I wish someone had done the same for me. _

_ You’re a beautiful woman. _

“You’re a complex woman, Letitia Cadash...and a complicated one,” she murmured to herself. A thug? No, she may do brutal things, but what woman of strength and will did not, in a world like Thedas had become?

She pulled another sheet of paper toward her, the letters to Laurent and the more formal one to Calienne sealed and waiting for the morning.

_ Letitia _

_ Perhaps you would like to take lunch in Skyhold’s gardens? It is remarkably peaceful, especially as it is likely to rain. It is enough to dissuade nobles, but what is rain to us? _

_ Vivienne _


End file.
